Comment by WhereIsTheTruth
3 days ago
> Government enacted shut down due to protests
Not just protests, it's to prevent foreign interference (like CIA) from fueling civil unrest and spreading AI deepfakes, as seen in Myanmar and Brazil
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
Wow its so nice this excuse just happens to shut down the internet when an astronomically unpopular regime faces vast protests after years of economic and political mismanagement
Internet shut downs are really common in authoritarian countries. India used to shut the Internet down in Kashmir every other day, and in random states for random reasons some as seemingly trivial as high school students taking their board exams
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Kashmir has such a bloody history with its kashmiri pandits and wars and even recent events that really shock its nation.
Kashmir has been the most unstable part of India and Article 370 although with flaws wanted to give Kashmir the stability it deserves but Kashmir had even its own flags and state etc. and thats why it got really messy and why the internet used to be shut down
Kashmir still requires people to specifically get a sim just for Kashmir. But you can get any large carrier to do such. There are even ways of generating e-sim and such, but there is genuinely lots of concerns and complaints in doing so and its very time consuming in a way but internet access has stabilized for the most part, you just require a special sim verification again to do such or perhaps buying a new sim specifically for kashmir but you can port the number as well but as I said, its really time consuming but possible to even do this without entering kashmir itself
Apparently a lot of people in the west too are assuming that these protests are fueled by the west. At least that's the most likely explanation for why so many left leaning youth are not supporting Iranians while supporting Palestine. Apparently the fight is not about freedom but about (perceived) whiteness vs non-whiteness
These people treat geopolitics as if they are watching an avengers movie.
>Apparently the fight is not about freedom but about (perceived) whiteness vs non-whiteness
But the Iranians are white. The name Iran is literally derived from "Aryan".
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No, they're just better educated about Iran than are you.
Iran provides substantial food, fuel, education and healthcare subsidies to the average citizen and has a very effective state bureaucracy which functions independent of political appointees. Pensioners' checks are issued regularly and social services are delivered by charitable "Bonyads", which are run by local mosques, which don't report to any government ministries.
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I gave this a skim and a keyword search. Note that I'm not familiar with the matter.
The article claims that the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar that kicked off in 2017 has been substantively fueled by Facebook propaganda efforts, with strong links to Myanmar's own "security forces" (military).
> it's to prevent foreign interference (like CIA) from fueling civil unrest and spreading AI deepfakes, as seen in Myanmar and Brazil
In contrast then, you seem to allege that it was actually a foreign interference campaign by the CIA? Or am I misunderstanding what you're proposing?
Because if I'm not, I fail to see how what you linked supports that at all. Even your mention of deepfakes seems very questionable, as those haven't been a thing until late 2017, by which point this cleansing effort was already long underway. I further see that the US has formally condemned these events, although of course that does not rule out involvement.
CIA and Amnesty's claims aside, focus on how social media fuels civil unrest, the real concern is foreign interference, Iran has been a target for a very long time
The US wants a regime change, that's a fact, Trump has been very vocal on the matter, and the NSA has the tools to do what ever it pleases on the internet (e.g., PRISM)
People can focus on a lot of things and make any arbitrary narrative emerge. My problem is exactly that I do not find this angle compelling so far, especially in light of the to-me-obvious alternative.
You started off by listing a bunch of things that did not pass my smell test (and you have now walked back on), then followed it up by what's essentially a scattershot of vague gesturings. Why would I focus on what you tell me to? Not only is any of these not compelling, I do not find you a reliable narrator so far at all.
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You know what else fuels unrest - potentially not having basic needs met by society. There is a major economic crisis in Iran. There is an impending water crisis.
Social media is a new thing, but protests are old. People protested in despotic regimes prior to social media, and the triggering factors were basically the same as what is happening in Iran right now.
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Pretty sure the CIA is perfectly capable of doing that without the internet.
If anything its easier to spread rumours without the internet to let people compare notes
or alternatively to shutdown information flowing out just before the killing begins
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/11/iran...